Country Overview

A distinctive feature of the American experiment in government has been the religious tolerance mandated by the First Amendment (1791) to the U.S. Constitution, which provides that the federal government shall neither directly support nor interfere with the practice of religion, at least within the broad limits that have emerged through generations of court decisions. The 50 states have all adopted similar measures as well. In practice, patterns and instances of religious intolerance have occurred over the years despite the law and have generally been directed by the Protestant (or more broadly, Christian) majority against minority groups seen as threatening to the status quo and its values. Anti-Catholicism, once common in...